Choosing and Using Fiction and Non-Fiction 3-11

Choosing and Using Fiction and Non-Fiction 3-11 is a guide to the many kinds of text we want children to encounter, use and enjoy during their nursery and primary school years. So children’s non-fiction literature – including autobiography, biography, information and reference texts – is given equal status with fiction – nursery rhymes, picturebooks, novels, traditional tales, playscripts and poetry. The author addresses important issues and allows the voices of teachers, reviewers and children to be heard. The book supports teachers as they help children on their journey to becoming insightful and critical readers of non-fiction and sensitive and reflective readers of fiction. It also contains suggestions for practice which are in the spirit of the more flexible and creative approach to learning towards which primary schools are moving.

It includes:
• help on using criteria to select quality texts of all kinds;
• annotated booklists for each kind of text for different age groups;
• suggestions for keeping a balance between print and screen-based texts;
• case studies showing teachers and children using texts in interesting and imaginative ways to support learning in English lessons and across the curriculum;
• advice on developing children’s visual and multimodal literacy;
• guidance on using the school library and embedding study skills in children’s wider purposes and learning;
• critiques of key theoretical perspectives and research projects.
Although the main readership will be primary and student teachers, it is hoped that the book will be of interest and use to anyone concerned with the role of texts in children’s learning.